09/01/2003

Hattricky

From Sir Bruce's chart to the headlines in game magazines, the biggest attention for collaborative online play goes to graphical role-playing games like EverQuest and Lineage, with some attention left over for CounterStrike and Starcraft.

Hattrick is an online soccer game with over 160,000 active players, mostly across Europe. Through a web browser, players manage team rosters and training amidst an active market for football talent. Matches happen a few times a week, but gamers don't control the in-game action - the outcome of the game is determined by the statistics established through player management.

Web-based fantasy sports have been some of the most successful online game types for 'net portals like Yahoo. Still I was surprised here since so many people play and this game has never crossed my radar. It's possible to be a fluent, active electronic gamer and miss entire genres and active gaming communities; Hattrick hasn't received much US press since it's about soccer and it's got no graphics.

Gameplay appears to be a texty mix of Outlook and fantasy Ebay stuffed in a web browser. A giant active market place where your results are tested in the arena of simulated sports. Hattrick has grown since its release 6 years ago; now I imagine there are some players who are more excited by the people they're playing with, or the chance to design their own team. Still others see themselves as expert scouts for under-appreciated talent, picking computer players to groom and set out on the field. Maybe some players are invested in the competition, on a local and then national level - the game was designed in Sweden so they are the country to beat in this e-cup.

It's astonishing to see the amount of detail possible when you harnass computers to track variables for shared fantasy. "Fantasy" is used to describe worlds suffused with magic; in this case, fantasy is simply the chance to act in something not real. But "Play Money" calls that into question - if the virtual marketplace of Hattrick achieves enough value, gamers might trade accounts or team members for cash. Finding real-world economic value in a game world like this one is an easy way to argue that the game has high stakes; stakes higher than the word "fantasy" might connote.

Even without the real economic stakes, the hundreds of thousands of virtual managers and coaches active on Hattrick are fascinating: members of the tribe of people exercising their minds in collaborative electronic simulation. What are they making? What are they learning?

Hattrick is a massively-multiplayer online soccer/football game playable through a web browser at Hattrick.org; sign-ups are free.